Saturday, February 9, 2013

Sew Grateful Week: Around the Blogosphere

Wow! What an amazing week it has been! Thank you to everyone who has participated! I have loved your posts. If you haven't participated, there's still time! Keep uploading your giveaways, reflection posts, resources and projects! And if you haven't been checking out all the Sew Grateful posts, take a browse:

Have you seen Anthea's blog? If not, you must head over to Sewing, Vintage, Knitting. Anthea is undertaking a FABULOUS project to sew up all the patterns in her 1941 Lutterloh 'Der Goldene Schnitt' book. If you've never seen vintage Lutterloh books, you are in for a treat. Developed in Germany, these books include individual cards each with a pattern on them. They are patterns in miniature like this:

The books come with a special ruler and you expand the miniature pattern out on the lines indicated according to your own measurements! I am so excited to follow along with this project....I think Anthea and I are vintage kindred spirits :-)

Have you heard about the Wartime Wardrobe Challenge? It seeks to address the issues of sustainability through self-imposed rationing. According to challenge hosts:

We have taken our inspiration from the wartime clothes rationing system that the British government developed to deal with scarcity of raw materials and production capacity (due to factories prioritising military needs and limited shipping). The modern constraints inspiring this self-imposed rationing are land use considerations and finite raw materials, water and energy resources as well as chemical pollution at different stages of the production process.

You've probably already heard that the lovely Rochelle who blogs over at Lucky Lucille is hosting a 1940s sewalong from now until the end of March? Definitely stop by her blog and check it out. I'll be participating and it will probably be the one sewalong I'll finish...lol. She's already posted some great scans to get people started. I can't wait to see everyone's 1940s outfits!

The super talented Julia Bobbin is hosting the 2nd annual Mad Men Dress Challenge! Happening now until mid-April, everyone will be sewing along making their own renditions of the stylish Mad Men outfits (from any season). More details on the sewalong are here, and check out all the cool outfits that were sewn during the first challenge. I'm hoping to participate in this as well but haven't officially signed on yet...

One of my favourite sewing bloggers, Rosy who blogs over at Sewingadicta, recently posted about an AMAZING archive of vintage Burda magazines. This archive contains ALL the Burda magazines from the year 1950 until 1990--completely viewable and downloadable. The magazines are in German and the website is in Russian...but it's still an amazing resources! Imagine the number of patterns that are available (perfect for the Mad Men challenge!).

My favourite sewalong that's happening? Hands down has to be the Bowie Sewalong hosted by Tempest. I think this is such a cool idea! The original impetus came from a bunch of the Sew Weekly gals this year when they were sewing up the challenge inspired by an artist or album cover. Turns out that Bowie is actually coming out with a new album in March (his first studio album in 10 years) and there is a V&A exhibit on his work that is also happening in the spring. Tempest has started a neat pinterest board to get the creative juices flowing! Can't wait for this...surely I can channel a 1940 dress inspired by Bowie??

It's that time of the year! The lovely Xandra is hosting the 3rd annual EvaDress Pattern Contest! Here's the details:

Sew up any men’s or women’s garment (not accessory) from your favorite EvaDress pattern. When you forward your submission, tell us why this is your favorite pattern, what you like most about it. You are not required to use all elements from the style you sew from the pattern as it was originally issued, although it must contain at least 70% of the original pieces for any one style you are sewing from the pattern.

No purchase necessary to enter (If you have an EvaDress pattern in your stash and not yet put it to use, here’s your chance).

Five FINALISTS will be voted by all participating EvaDress customers, fellow entrants and members (followers) of the EvaDress blog. I will vote one winner from these five selected finalists.

A $25 gift certificate from Fabric.com will be e-mailed to the winner. Also, a $100 EvaDress patterns certificate plus free shipping (international included) will be awarded. The EvaDress certificate is redeemable for up to one year from March 15, 2013 (the contest ending date). Separate conditions will apply for the Fabric.com certificate as outlined on that certificate.

Projects are to be started no sooner than 11:59 EST on January 31, 2013. The contest will close for submissions at 11:59p.m. EST on March 15, 2013. Voting will take place on March 17, 2013 and announced no later than March 18, 2013.

I heard about this amazing idea from my friend Kat who blogs over at Modern Vintage Cupcakes. The idea is that we've all got our fabric, notions or pattern stashes and what once excited us is perhaps lingering around....why not swap that stuff for someone else's stash items! It's about being ruthless about what you're never going to use and swap it for something you will use. It's like a giant online stash-swapping party!

I'm super excited for this sewalong hosted by Sew Classic! It's based on the show Pushing Daisies! Some really cute outfits. Check out the initial post here...
______________________________________________________________________________

Phew! What a round-up, I should do these more often! It's so great to see everything that's happening! Do tell, are you participating in any of these?

Ahh, thank you so much for featuring me here, as well as the other lovely ladies because I somehow missed most of them! I'm definitely going back over the links to make sure I checked out everyone's amazing posts!